Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore international market development for mature products and practices used in a novel business context.

Taking a qualitative approach, the case study method was chosen to investigate how firms develop markets in relation to a new international business context. Critical international decisions are analysed using a managerial perspective.

The success of international ventures depends on managerial learning and effectiveness. In this paper, the authors argue that decisions about international market development can add significantly to the understanding of how business firms enter and develop markets in novel business contexts. Two case studies show different approaches for meeting challenges in distant markets. Four propositions are developed.

A theoretical contribution of this study is the importance of factors that explain international market development decisions in novel business contexts. The balance between incomplete knowledge and making resource commitments is of central concern to international managers. Some of this is tacit knowledge that a firm achieves and learns during the process of market development and other knowledge can only become available after an actual market entry. A second theoretical contribution of this study is the significance of contextual market knowledge in a novel business context.

This study aims to investigate the role of institutional and stakeholder interaction in the development of integrated reporting policy by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC). It helps advance the theory of integrated reporting and offers insights into its fundamental concepts and relevant issues.

A flexible pattern-matching qualitative research approach is used and an analytical framework of integrated reporting historical foundations and conceptual background is developed. An IIRC case analysis is conducted by using a chronological content analysis of the International Integrated Reporting Framework and related initiatives and publications for integrated reporting policy pronouncements.

Institutional and stakeholder pressures within both the organization’s macro and micro contexts have played an effective role in transforming corporate reporting practices. In an integrated reporting context, institutional forces of normative and mimetic isomorphism seem to have more influence on organizations than coercive pressures, where stakeholder pressures with limited official power derive influence from their legitimacy while urgency is evidently implied. Findings indicate that integrated reporting policy has emerged analogously with the institutional environment and stakeholders’ expectations. The distinct nature of integrated reporting has caused a paradigm shift from silo thinking of wealth creation to integrated thinking of value creation.

This is an exploratory study that does not consider different prominent integrated reporting models. It has important implications for policymakers in articulating the integration of financial and nonfinancial metrics for reporting overall corporate performance. It can help academics build on integrated reporting foundations for conducting future research and assist practitioners in operationalizing integrated reporting policy into practice. Moreover, it has potential prospects for international business in developing integrated reporting policies and strategies aimed at creating mutual value in specific international contexts.

Integrated reporting represents a new internationally developing reporting trend with distinct reporting features and foundations for value creation. The study provides considerable addition to emerging research into the growing awareness of integrated reporting policy, develops a conceptual model of institutional and stakeholder interaction and theorizes on such interplay, identifies the potential influences under which integrated reporting is likely to occur and offers key insights into integrated reporting policy. Hence, it contributes to the ongoing global challenge of promoting the reporting transition to integrated reporting and its perceived future endorsement.

This chapter introduces the tenets of international student critical race theory (IntlCrit) by expanding the critical race methodology to better account for the racialized experiences of international students of color (SOC) in higher education. IntlCrit emphasizes recognizing international SOC as a racialized student body and acknowledges international students' different racial contexts and experiences in their home countries beyond the US dominant monolithic paradigm of racism (Black and White). IntlCrit provides a conceptual foundation for scholarly discourse on race and racism by offering a set of tailored tenets while utilizing tenets of critical race theory (CRT). The tailored tenets can further advance critical analyses to examine developmental processes of racial “othering” and understand the ways that racism affects international SOC in the internationalization of higher education. The IntlCrit tenets include: recognizing and humanizing international SOC as a racial body; evolving international students' eyes (racial identity development); acknowledging intersectional and transnational identities; using an expansive and inclusive historical approach; centering race and racism on international students' experiential knowledge; challenging notions of color-evasiveness and meritocracy in the internationalization of higher education; and committing to global justice. While IntlCrit tenets are focused on addressing the contexts of international students, the framework provides critical perspectives that can be useful in understanding the experiences of different international student groups by nationality or region. Indeed, it can contribute to more extensive discussions regarding how racism functions globally and in the United States. Lastly, it is important to note that the IntlCrit tenets are not definitive or permanent but are a meaningful initiative that challenges inequities and inequalities toward international students' racial experience. I hope the IntlCrit perspectives contribute to including race and racism in international education scholarship and enhancing the policies and practices in diversity, equity, and inclusion to embrace the global, multicultural, and multi-ethnic/racial contexts.

This paper contributes to studies on the relationship between dynamic capabilities (DCs) and performance by showing how domain-specific DCs – international dynamic marketing capabilities (IDMCs) – affect the international performance of exporting firms in the context of extreme environmental dynamism – during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors focus on a sample of 277 exporting manufacturers from the post-transition economy of Poland. The authors use hierarchical multiple regression analysis to test this study's hypotheses.

This study's findings show that deployment of IDMCs by export manufacturers in the context of environmental jolts contributes to better performance, and this relationship is mediated by adaptation to foreign markets and product development capability. Additionally, this study's results reveal that the significant and positive indirect effect of IDMCs on international performance (through mediators) is, however, weakened under conditions of extreme environmental dynamism.

The limitations pertain to the cross-sectional nature of this study and the research sample, characterised by the dominance of export manufacturers of final products, the dominance of manufacturers operating in the business-to-business sector, or in the business-to-business and business-to-customer sectors simultaneously.

The study provides suggestions to managers on how to build resilience in international markets during turbulent times. These activities involve investments in IDMCs that support activities centred around product development and adaptation to foreign markets.

The novel construct of IDMCs is introduced and operationalized. The study empirically tests the direct and indirect relationship between IDMCs and performance contingent upon extreme environmental dynamism. The results demonstrate the boundary conditions for the effectiveness of these domain-specific DCs in such a research setting.

The study explores diverse and critical understandings of “international” in a higher education curriculum context, situated in a curriculum review of a postgraduate taught programme entitled “International Education” at a university located in England. Our study problematises and decentres some dominant, normalised notions of “international”, exploring critical possibilities of engaging with the term for higher education internationalisation.

We examined a set of programme curriculum documents and conducted a survey exploring teaching staff’s uses and interpretations of “international” in their design and delivery of course units. Through a thematic analysis of the dataset, we identify what “international” might mean or how it may be missing across the curriculum.

Our findings suggest a locally-developed conceptualisation of “international” beyond the normalised interpretation of “international” as the inclusion or comparison of multiple nations, and different, other countries around the global world. More diverse, critical understandings of the term have been considered, including international as intercultural, competences, ethics, languages and methods. The study provides an example approach to reflective scholarship that programmes can undergo in order to develop clarity, depth and purposefulness into internationalisation as enacted in a local curriculum context.

The study provides a first step towards establishing clearer guidelines on internationalising the curriculum by higher education institutions and individual programmes in order to challenge a superficial engagement of “international” within internationalisation. It exemplifies a starting point for making purposeful steps away from normalised notions and assumptions of international education and facilitates development towards its critical, ethically-grounded opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze to what extent and in what ways signaling theory has been explored within the field of international marketing. This paper systematically reviews the use of signaling theory in the field of international marketing. Communication is a core aspect of the international marketing process. Research in this field has explored effective and unique ways of improving the communication flow to reduce the asymmetry of information between international consumers and the firm. This notion is adopted, enhanced and strengthened by signaling theory. Signaling theory has recently received the attention of international marketing scholars.

The systematic review methodology was applied for the purpose of identifying the relevant studies. We extracted academic articles over the last 23 years from the domain of international marketing that directly contribute to signaling theory based on 57 journal articles extracted through the systematic review process.

Based on systematic research the results reveal that the topic has grown and continues to expand within the broader international marketing field. We offer a theoretical conceptual framework to better understand signaling theory in the context of international marketing.

The authors map and critically evaluate the use of signaling theory in international marketing. Relevance of signaling theory in international marketing is growing and authors present an integrative framework that organizes the existing literature, and provides scholars to further expand on emerging themes of the domain. The paper offers some useful future research directions.

The main purpose of this study is to fill the research gap on how B2B global service firms integrate dynamic capabilities within their omnichannel management to influence positive word of mouth (WOM), customer engagement (CE) and customer equity.

Drawing on the dynamic capability and WOM theories, a model has been developed that defines the subjects of the empirical test. The paper reports on data collected from 312 service-oriented global firms in Australia, through a cross-sectional survey. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The findings suggest that content management (i.e. information consistency, source trustworthiness and endorsement) and concerns management (i.e. privacy, security and recovery) capabilities are the two significant antecedents of positive WOM within a B2B omnichannel setting in international marketing. The findings also confirm the key mediating role of CE between positive WOM and customer equity.

The findings extend dynamic capability theory in the context of international marketing by linking WOM, CE and customer equity. The findings add further theoretical rigor by establishing the nomological chain between positive WOM and customer equity, in which CE plays a key mediating role.

This study extends the understanding of the context of IHRM headquarters as one of the top management groups (TMGs) through the application of both upper echelons theory and contextual theory.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior Israeli HR managers from international advanced-technology companies.

This study expands on theory by explaining how contexts act as constraints or opportunities for IHRM headquarter professionals as TMGs. The organizational context in which the IHRM headquarters take part is based on two themes: organizational structure and shared values. This is followed by the context of IHRM headquarters that includes two foundations for integration: strategic IHRM and trust. Finally, integration is derived from two themes: collaborative behaviors and electronic HRM.

This research has yielded a theoretical framework, which makes progress toward developing an integrative paradigm between IHRM headquarters' behavioral integration and organizational features. The paper presents a valuable “toolkit” for facilitating internal integration in IHRM headquarters.

This chapter explores the ways in which border imperialism, a concept widely attributed to Harsha Walia (2013), interacts with international postsecondary remote learning contexts to open opportunities to both extend and resist border imperialism. Historical and present contexts of border imperialism centered on Canada are consulted, uncovering a connection between technologies of labor and colonial power dynamics. Both temporal contexts serve to highlight the ways in which technologies of labor create a colonial power dynamic enacted through the usage of borders as imperialist tools. The body of literature concerning border imperialism is then reviewed to discern how remote learning contexts facilitate both resistance to and expansion of border imperialism. It is found that these contexts do support narratives of resistance to bodily racism and temporo-economic imperialism, however, in so doing also support neo-racism and unjust soft power dynamics within internationalization. The opportunities for resistance and expansion of border imperialism are then consolidated in pursuit of an ethical path forward with respect to the usage of new remote learning technologies in the context of internationalization.